


but when I leave a place, I like to know I’m leaving it

by completist



Series: when half of your heart will never come home (BF Angst Week 2019) [4]
Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Banana Fish Angst Week 2019, Gen, M/M, Reconciliation, implied past buralee lol they're just rlly familiar with each other, implied singeiji, it rlly be like that with them ig
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 11:33:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17559599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/completist/pseuds/completist
Summary: “What were you trying to achieve when you decided to come here, Blanca?” Yut-lung asks.Blanca kept his gaze locked with his, before walking to stand behind him. He wounds his arm around Yut-lung; his huge hand enveloping the one Yut-lung has on the empty glass before raising it to his lips, placing a kiss on the back of Yut-lung’s hand like he did all those years ago.“I think we achieved whatever it is I planned.”“You did not plan at all, did you?” Yut-lung retorts, surprised at the laugh he lets out. He buries his face on the arm Blanca has around his shoulders, “Do you think he forgave me?”





	but when I leave a place, I like to know I’m leaving it

**Author's Note:**

> jahdkfajhf this is what i call commitment: writing for the BF Angst Week even if im already weeks late.
> 
> Title is a quote from Salinger's Catcher in the Rye!

_ “The mercenary you previously hired is waiting for you, sir.” _

 

_ “Which one?” _

 

_ “Blanca.” _

  
  


Yut-lung consciously slows his movements, his feet lighter than they usually are. Sunlight pours into the room, the curtains drawn back and Yut-lung allows the calm the room often makes him feel wash over him. The bottle of his current preferred drink—some bourbon he bought during a trip across Europe—sits untouched on the low table in the middle of the room.

 

Feeling suddenly suffocated in his home isn't exactly unusual for him, even within the comfort of a room he keeps only for himself but knowing Blanca—

 

The anticipation of  _ not _ knowing what is going to happen next isn’t foreign to him. The memory however, is far more difficult to extinguish.

 

His former bodyguard sits on the couch facing the door—facing Yut-lung who has grown a little taller, but still looks pretty much the same, his hair longer, face set in a cold, hard mask he’s trying too hard to maintain.

 

Blanca sits there, looking like the same imposing man Yut-lung knew all those years ago, holding Salinger’s  _ Catcher in the Rye  _ in one hand, the other he uses to turn a page before setting it over his arm. He’s wearing his glasses, his long hair still tied in a low ponytail, broad shoulders emphasized by the tight yet fitting red dress shirt paired with a black tie and waistcoat. Yut-lung stares, eyes moving along points in Blanca’s body and position where he can hide a weapon. Yut-lung stares, pointedly ignoring the suitcase near his feet.

 

Blanca sits there, looking all the bit like he belongs to Yut-lung’s home, and yet he wouldn’t even look at him.

 

Yut-lung lets the door slam close.

 

“What are you doing here?” Yut-lung asks, he fancies that his voice has gotten a little deeper over the years—more mature, a little masculine maybe, capable of commanding even in the lowest tones. “Blanca.”

 

The room feels eerily silent, tense – it felt like the air left the room even with the closed windows, it felt like that one time with Blanca's hand muffling his cries as commotion erupts around them.

 

_ It's my job to protect you _ .

 

Yut-lung hates how the memory of the words they exchanged echoes in his ears, flashes of green and tears and a  _ smile  _ warring in the forefront of his mind. He looks at him, and Yut-lung wants to turn around and walk away, to turn away from him, and the small smile on his lips when he raises his head to look at Yut-lung, the way his eyes lights up as if to say  _ I’m proud of what you’ve become. _

 

There’s nothing to be proud of what he has become, or what he has done, or of what he’s going to do.

 

“Will you come with me?”

 

He shouldn’t, he really  _ shouldn’t _ . Yut-lung has a vague sense of what Blanca is referring to. It’s not even in the way he’s dressed, or in his body language, or the way he said those words. But he shouldn’t, he really shouldn’t.

 

Yut-lung knows he’s not ready.

 

“None of us will ever be ready.” Blanca smiles again, and isn’t this so disconcerting that Yut-lung is already questioning the legitimacy of this encounter. Blanca’s smile is  _ soft,  _ and understanding, like he finally  _ accepted,  _ like he’s actually willing to be here with him—nothing less, but could be more. “We just have to be willing.”

 

None of them even talked about it for years, all of them just wallowing in their own sadness. Yut-lung can see it—in the way Sing comes to their meetings with either a smile or looking like Atlas gave him the weight of the world to carry. He sees it in the way Sing would clench his jaw, or the way Sing would abruptly leave. Yut-lung can see it, in the slam of Sing’s punches during the days he occasionally had to bring him out of the gym, he sees it on the photographs in the magazines, the wallpaper when Sing’s phone lights up.

 

He sees it in New York City, when it keeps on persevering despite losing its goddamn gem.

 

“Fine.” Yut-lung raises an unimpressed eyebrow, “But unless you want to go to hell early, I suggest you drive.”

  
  
  


The exhibit is beautiful, there’s no doubt about that.

 

Eiji’s photographs always have that same overwhelming feel to it — even more so in person, but all Yut-lung can think of is that he doesn’t deserve to see it.

 

His steps barely echo as they walk along the corridor, yet he stands out in his red velvet suit accentuated with lines of gold on the collar and cuffs. The exhibit is filled with people, echoing the serenity of the photographs on display, the quiet awe gracefully contained at the way their eyes stare and interpret each photograph.

 

The photos have this quiet stillness in them, like the world could go on and it will remain. The universe can choose to die right now and its memory will forever exist. Like a museum, or an abandoned home, or the shore of an elusive island, like the city. One could look at it in this moment and  _ feel,  _ and the next moment the reality of the world will come crashing in.

 

They have this quiet stillness that is bare for the world to feel and see and  _ consume _ , like it holds autonomy over its spectator, like it does not just expect you to just  _ look _ , but to also feel, like it found all the secrets of the universe and couldn't decide whether to share or keep it.

 

It’s like gazing at that Japanese boy again.

 

Blanca walks beside him, his presence acting like like the stones that breaks the crashing waves of his emotions. They walk with his hand on Blanca’s arm, looking for all the world like a couple who passed by and took interest in the exhibit, quite unlike who they really are. They walk together along the walls depicting Eiji's visions and into the back of the long hall, looking for all the world like a detached couple of tourists, a complete opposite of what they feel.

  
  
  


_ Dawn. _

 

Eiji Okumura titled the photograph  _ Dawn,  _ and its fitting, Yut-lung will give him that. It has the quiet divinity of dawn in it, the sweet whisper of its light chasing away the crippling darkness. Sometimes, when he lay awake at night he thinks they could be friends, him and Eiji—maybe in a different lifetime, or in a different universe. One where his pain and hatred didn’t stripped him raw and ate him alive. One where he’s more controlled of his well-being, perhaps one where he lived to be a child, where he lived to be lesser yet greater than what he is right now.

 

“I didn't expect you here.”

 

Yut-lung should turn away now and pretend none of this ever happened. He should turn around and be his old, condescending, petty, and  _ jealous  _ self. He should turn around and be the person he was to Eiji years ago—

 

He should—

 

“We didn't mean to intrude, Eiji.” Blanca says, his other hand covering the one Yut-lung has on his arm. “We just-”

 

“It's alright,” Eiji replies, and  _ damn,  _ Yut-lung can hear the smile and acceptance in his voice. But it’s not  _ alright _ ; it’s not alright for Yut-lung to be here after what he’s done, it’s not alright that he’s the one seeing these photos—seeing  _ Eiji— _ instead of  _ him.  _ It’s not alright, and no amount of being ready will ever equate to the fact that he  _ shouldn’t  _ be here in the first place. “I do hope you're enjoying the exhibit.”

 

Blanca tightens his hold in his hand. “We do. Your photos do speak volumes, those articles barely gave it justice.”

 

Slipping away from Blanca's hold, Yut-lung clenches his hands into fists. He swallows the lump in his throat, forces his lungs to work, his heart to stop beating erratically, Yut-lung closes his eyes and tries to erase the image of  _ dawn  _ from his mind.

 

He opens his eyes when he feels someone slip beside him. Eiji’s mere presence feels like the sun, scorching and overwhelming — he doesn’t know how Ash or Sing managed, perhaps it’s just him. These days it feels like it's just him. He doesn’t know how to take this, doesn’t know how he should face Eiji, doesn’t know how to manage the festering guilt residing within a heart he believed did not exist if not for the pain it constantly reminds him of.

 

“They are... devastatingly beautiful.” Yut-lung finally says, and he doesn't even know what he is referring to. “There are no better words to describe them.”

 

“Thank you.” Eiji replies, and he’s looking at Yut-lung. He’s looking at Yut-lung like everything he did no longer matters, that time actually healed all of them. He’s looking at Yut-lung like everything in his past is nothing but a fragment of who he is, not all of what he is and what his brothers molded him to be. Eiji looks at him, and Yut-lung wonders if this is what Ash felt back then, if this is what moved him to obliterate everything he had ever known so long as the sun shines on him. Eiji looks at him, and Yut-lung wonders if this is what made Sing stay, if it’s what made Sing endure the years of waiting only to occasionally glimpse the sun amidst the seemingly never ending storm of grief.

 

Eiji looks at him and it felt like the sun shines not for the sake of eclipsing the moon, but to grant the moon the same warmth it gives to everyone, to liberate the moon from its years of desolation and quietly masked grief.

 

Eiji looks at him, smiles, and envelopes him in a tight hug.

 

“It is good to see you, Yut-Lung.”

  
  
  


New York City is more than beautiful and dangerous, and as Yut-lung looks over the city—all of him exposed into the night, the transparency of the floor to ceiling windows offering no safety—Yut-lung wonders if anyone will shoot him, now, in the most vulnerable he let the world ever see of him.

 

Blanca drove them to one of the penthouse suites he owns in the city. How he knows about it, Yut-lung could hardly care. How he knows about what he chose to after everything, Yut-lung does not know.

 

Yut-lung only knows that he’s here, and he managed to once again integrate himself in Yut-lung’s life almost as if he never left.

 

He downs the rest of his wine in one go.

 

“How are you feeling?” Blanca is standing in the middle of the room, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up. He keeps his gaze locked on Yut-lung’s reflection, the moon shining high above them. “I did not expect—”

 

“—I’m okay.” Yut-lung mumbles, mildly surprised that his low tone cut through whatever Blanca is going to say. “I think.”

 

Silence stretches between them. Yut-lung keeps his gaze on the city, unseeing; thinking only of the mundane things—the call he has to make to some ‘important’ people, the flight to Vietnam in two days, the documents Sing sent for him to sign. He thinks of the mundane things he used to avoid.

 

At some point, he thinks, maybe the mundane is what suited him best.

 

“What were you trying to achieve when you decided to come here, Blanca?” Yut-lung asks, “Will you tell me? Because I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

 

Blanca kept his gaze on him, lips set into a thin line. And of course,  _ of course  _ he wouldn’t get an answer. Seven years and everything in between wouldn’t merit him anything than being caught in the whirlwind that is the memory of Ash Lynx and the ghost of what Eiji Okumura used to be.

 

Blanca kept his gaze locked with his, before walking to stand behind him. He wounds his arm around Yut-lung; his huge hand enveloping the one Yut-lung has on the empty glass before raising it to his lips, placing a kiss on the back of Yut-lung’s hand like he did all those years ago.

 

“I think we achieved whatever it is I planned.”

 

“You did not plan at all, did you?” Yut-lung retorts, surprised at the laugh he lets out. He buries his face on the arm Blanca has around his shoulders, “Do you think he forgave me?”

 

“I think he forgave a lot of people before he forgave himself.” Blanca says, burying his face on Yut-lung’s neck and sighs, “He forgave himself last. It took him a long time but he did, and that’s what matters.”

 

“I want to do that too.”

 

“You can, Yut-lung.” Blanca assures him, placing a kiss on his forehead, “You just have to believe that you can.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> lmao is that even angst when it is that hopeful? All i know is that yue deserves some closure (or semblance of it) as well :")
> 
> hmu on [twitter](https://twitter.com/completist_) and [tumblr](http://queen---queer.tumblr.com/)


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